A Haunting in Venice is a supernatural thriller based upon the novel Hallowe’en Party written by Agatha Christie and serves as a direct sequel to Death of the Nile, which was directed by Kenneth Branagh. It focuses on the now-retired detective Hercule Poirot who is living in Venice where he reluctantly attends a séance at a decaying, haunted palazzo after being invited by his friend, Ariadne Oliver. However, when one of the guests is murdered, he is willing to solve the case in a sinister world full of shadows, darkness, creepy noises, and secrets.
Oscar winner Kenneth Branagh returns to direct this film while reprising his role as famed detective Hercule Poirot, who is now retired while currently living in Venice, Italy. In this film, he is on a hotter spot on solving a mystery than his previous cases shown in the previous films. As for his acting, he is way more serious as his acting skills are genuine when he graciously assembles a group of well-known actors just to make this film as entertaining as ever. As both an actor and a film director, Branagh knows that he can’t make a Agatha-Christie-based-book without those kinds of acting casts.
The cinematography is glorious as Branagh put his usual directing job to good use, but with more creativity to it since the main setting of the film takes place in Venice. Even though the film lies on the spooky Halloween, Branagh went on full creative control by bringing the spirit of Halloween to Venice by adding some unique production designs, scary images, and some jumpscares, inspired by the classic horror films, such as Scream, The Conjuring, Halloween, Saw, and Friday the 13th. It pretty much seems like Branagh and his filmmaking teams wanted to provide the audiences a spooky, yet entertaining ride of a lifetime as if you are about to enter the haunted theme park ride for that atmosphere. And the sound designs and the usages of special effects are truly subtle and superb.
The cast of actors have also joined in this latest Branagh-directed-Agatha-Christie-film, and they are extraordinarily abundant to see on the set. Here, we have actors Kyle Allen as Maxime Gerard, Camille Cottin (Stillwater) as Olga Seminoff, Jamie Dorman (Fifty Shades films) as Dr. Leslie Ferrier, Tina Fey (NBC’s 30 Rock) as Ariadne Oliver, Jude Hill (Belfast) as Leopold Ferrier, Ali Khan as Nicholas Holland, Emma Laird (Paramount Plus’ Mayor of Kingstown) as Desdemona Holland, Kelly Reilly (Paramount’s Yellowstone) as Rowena Drake, Riccardo Scamarcio (John Wick: Chapter 2) as Vitale Portfoglio, and Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh (A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once) as Joyce Reynolds.
A Haunting in Venice is a fine whodunnit-mystery film offered by Kenneth Branagh. To date, this is one of the best installments out of the films he directed that are truly based on Agatha Christie’s books and I can’t wait to see what Kenneth Branagh has to offer in the future, whether it’s another film based on her books or just an original idea. But whatever it is, I’m so looking forward to what he has in his box. Despite giving me some jump-scares, I really enjoyed this film thanks to his acting, his direction, and the entire cast who made it all possible. This is a good choice to celebrate Halloween, which is coming next month. I wish they could have released this in the month of October just to get a full Halloween experience, but for my instinct, it’s mainly because the studio decided to choose this month for an authentic Fall experience now that summer is officially over.
GRADE: B-
Photo credit: 20th Century Studios
Movies365 by Henry Pham 
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